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Illness narratives and chronic patients' sustainable employability: The impact of positive work stories.

ABSTRACT: The number of workers with a chronic disease is steadily growing in industrialized countries. To cope with and to give meaning to their illness, patients construct illness narratives, which are widely shared across patient societies, personal networks and the media. This study investigates the influence of these shared illness narratives on patient's working lives, by examining the impact of reading a positive work story versus negative work story on patients' sustainable employability. We expected that this relationship would be mediated by positive emotions and the extent to which the story enhanced awareness of desires future selves, and moderated by identification with story character. An online field experiment with 166 people with Inflammatory Bowel Disease in The Netherlands showed that while reading a positive story of a patient with the same condition significantly increased positive emotions, these emotions did not influence sustainable employability. However, reading a positive story was related to higher sustainable employability when patients became more aware of their desired possible future work selves. Finally, identification with the story character moderated the impact of story type on sustainable employability. This study showed that personal engagement with a positive work story of a fellow patient is related to higher sustainable employability. Findings can be helpful for health professionals to empower employees with a chronic disease.

SUBMITTER: Brokerhof IM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7010250 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Illness narratives and chronic patients' sustainable employability: The impact of positive work stories.

Brokerhof Inge M IM Ybema Jan Fekke JF Bal P Matthijs PM

PloS one 20200210 2

The number of workers with a chronic disease is steadily growing in industrialized countries. To cope with and to give meaning to their illness, patients construct illness narratives, which are widely shared across patient societies, personal networks and the media. This study investigates the influence of these shared illness narratives on patient's working lives, by examining the impact of reading a positive work story versus negative work story on patients' sustainable employability. We expec ...[more]

PMID: 32040494

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Project description:BackgroundBeing gifted with a very high IQ (> 98 percentile) can provide an advantage in the occupational context but can also come with its` own specific challenges. Where some studies found higher than average levels of wellbeing at work and successful careers amongst the gifted, other studies report boredom and less job satisfaction. This poses the question what gifted people value in work, and which factors are associated with the achievement of valued work related outcomes, wellbeing and sustainable employability. In this study these questions were explored using the value driven capability approach as a theoretical framework.MethodA qualitative approach was chosen and 16 in-depth semi-structured interviews with gifted workers (IQ > 130) were conducted. The transcripts were analysed using a reflexive thematic analysis aimed at identifying the work related outcomes participants aspired to achieve and the contextual and personal factors that affected the actualisation of these outcomes.ResultsParticipants placed great value on the opportunity to learn, to use their knowledge and skills, and tended to have high ethical standards. If realized, these values contributed to wellbeing whereas if not fulfilled, this often resulted in frustration and sadness. The most important personal factors associated with wellbeing at work and sustainable employability were the level of organizational awareness, self-knowledge, a willingness to compromise, and fear of stigmatisation. Contextually a facilitating leadership style of managers was important, allowing the worker autonomy and decision latitude. Socially, participants enjoyed others as sparring partners but often had an aversion to small talk which could lead to social avoidance and loneliness.ConclusionsIf gifted workers managed (to get) what they valued in work, this was associated with wellbeing and sustainable employment Coaching aimed at improving organizational awareness, specific social skills (e.g. small talk, adaptability) and understanding their own cognitive processes could be valuable. The application of an autonomy supporting facilitative leadership style by supervisors would be beneficial. Further research should try to confirm the findings using quantitative methods and needs to examine more closely the impact of stigmatisation and leadership styles.

Project description:Self-management support forms a central aspect of chronic Illness management nationally and globally. Evidence for the success of self-management support has mainly focussed on individually-centred outcomes of behavioural change. While it is recognised that social network members play an important role there is currently a gap in knowledge regarding who provides what type of support and under what circumstances. This is relevant for understanding the division of labour and the meeting of needs for those living with a long-term condition. We therefore took a network approach to explore self-management support conceptualising it as types of illness 'work' undertaken within peoples' social networks. 300 people from deprived areas and with chronic illnesses took part in a survey conducted in 2010 in the North West of England. A concentric circles diagram was used as a research tool with which participants identified 2,544 network members who contributed to illness management. The results provide an articulation of how social network members are substantially involved in illness management. Whilst partners and close family make the highest contributions there is evidence of inputs from a wide range of relationships. Network member characteristics (type of relationship, proximity, frequency of contact) impact on the amount of illness work undertaken in peoples' networks. In networks with 'no partner' other people tend to contribute more in the way of illness related work than in networks with a partner. This indicates a degree of substitutability between differently constituted networks, and that the level and type of input by different members of a network might change according to circumstances. A network perspective offers an opportunity to redress the balance of an exclusively individual focus on self-management because it addresses the broader set of contributions and resources available to people in need of chronic illness management and support.

Project description:BackgroundThe perspectives of low-educated employees are often neglected when designing sustainable employability (SE) interventions. As a result, the interventions offered by the employer do often not align with the needs of low-educated employees. This particular group should therefore be actively involved in the process of developing and implementing SE interventions in their work organizations. The current paper describes the development process of a web-based intervention for HR managers and direct supervisors aimed at improving the SE of low-educated employees. This intervention is specifically designed to involve low-educated employees.MethodsThe first four steps of the Intervention Mapping (IM) approach were used to systematically develop the intervention with the active involvement of stakeholders. Step 1 comprised a needs assessment including a literature review, empirical evidence, scoping search and several focus group interviews with employees and with representatives of employers. Step 2 formulated the intervention objective. During step 3, suitable theoretical methods were selected and translated to practical applications. Step 4 involved the development of a web-based intervention by integrating all information from the preceding steps.ResultsThe needs assessment indicated that the employees' active involvement and employees-employer genuine dialogue should be essential characteristics of an SE intervention for low-educated employees. The online toolkit 'Healthy HR' (HHR) was developed, which contains eight steps. Each step consists of one or more tasks helping the employer and employees with developing and implementing SE interventions themselves. One or more dialogue-based tools support each task. The leading principle providing structure within HHR was Adapted Intervention Mapping.ConclusionPrinciples of IM appeared to be useful to develop the intervention HHR systematically. This development process resulted in a practical online toolkit that supports employers in the development and implementation of local SE interventions tailored to the needs of low-educated employees. These employees should be actively involved in the process through a dialogue-based approach. By using IM principles, HHR is expected to increase the effectiveness in bettering the health and well-being of low-educated employees.

Dataset Information

Illness narratives and chronic patients' sustainable employability: The impact of positive work stories.

Publications

Illness narratives and chronic patients' sustainable employability: The impact of positive work stories.

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